EVERYONE LOVES SPACS. What do you give a financier for Valentine’s Day? A special-purpose acquisition company, of course. After a bumper 2020 for U.S. floats of blank-check vehicles, trashing all previous records with $83 billion of proceeds from 248 deals, according to SPAC Research, this year is already more than half way to topping both totals in just six weeks. Only time will tell if long-term investors will learn to love SPACs that have found acquisition targets. What’s clear, though, is that the individuals who sponsor the vehicles, taking early risk in return for up to 20% of the shares, make out very handsomely indeed. Those with recent SPAC dates include Alan Mnuchin, investment-banker brother of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and – more worryingly for those who fear the market has become dizzy – sporting celebrities Shaquille O’Neal, Alex Rodriguez and Colin Kaepernick. With more than $100 billion of SPAC money now jostling for companies to buy, some hookups will be questionable. By next Valentine’s Day, regret could kick in. (By Richard Beales)